"Chinese-American political scientist Pei Minxin’s “The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2026) is an autopsy report on a failing idea that few were willing to address: the belief that markets would weaken authoritarianism, that billionaires would push the Chinese Communist Party toward democracy, and that a rising middle class would seek elections rather than larger apartments. Pei dissects the myth with scholarly precision and the dry humor of someone who has watched Western policymakers cling to the same fantasies for 40 years."